Varsity Finishes 2nd At Wheeling Invite

After two weekends off from racing, the GIANTS were excited to get back to competition at the Wheeling Invite. It was a perfect morning for racing on the challenging course at Heritage Park.

The varsity team was looking to see how it measured up against state powerhouse Lake Zurich and state ranked Fremd. The pack got strung out too early in the race as sophomore Jose Reyes led a pack of four through the mile which included juniors Fitz Laurie, Alec Glazier, and Nate Amster. The next group several seconds back were all seniors with Jonathan Rosenfeld, Charlie Skurie, Matthew Casey, Juan Estela, and a few more seconds back Ben Bloom. As the race progressed it was clear that Lake Zurich would be the dominant winner as they had the first 3 runners in the race clearly ahead of the rest of the field. The Fremd pack was trying to battle with HP and each man had to battle to hold off and/or chase down runners in the green singlets from Fremd. At the 2 mile, Reyes and Amster were leading the team with the rest of the pack spread out over the next 20 seconds or so. At the finish Reyes led the team with an 11th place finish in 15:56.9 just 9 seconds behind the top runner from Fremd and 19 seconds behind Lake Zurich’s number 4 runner. Closely behind Reyes was Amster with a great race taking 13th in 16:02.5. After struggling early in the race, Rosenfeld moved up and took 16th place in 16:15.5 just one place ahead of Fremd’s number 2 runner. Glazier and Laurie were 20th (16:18.9) and 22nd (16:22.6) each finishing one place in front of runners from Fremd. Casey and Skurie came across in 26th and 27th (16:29.4 and 16:30.8) to put 7 runners in front of the 5th man for both LZ and Fremd. Estela finished in 39th (16:45.9) while Bloom fell off the pack to take 62nd (17:09.1).

This was a solid team performance by the varsity as they took a distant 2nd place to LZ for the second year in a row. Despite not running a perfect team race, the 1-5 gap was only 25.7 and 1-7 was 33.9. If the team can keep or hopefully improve this gap and move the pack up a little more, they have a chance to do very well the remainder of the season. Each runner must commit to working together with their teammates to move as one throughout races as well as workouts. They must BELIEVE they are capable of running that perfect team race as a pack!

The open race had several notable performances. The team was led by senior Hayden Schott. He ran well and took 14th place in 17:23.6.

Sophomores Jordy Mazza and Richard Heller had solid races to take 20th and 23rd (17:49.7 and 17:52.8). Heller has been struggling with shin and back issues so this was a strong performance despite minimal amounts of running. Sophomore David Halfin has put together some quality training the past several weeks and it is starting to show in his racing as he took 68th place in 19:03.8. Senior Ethan Small ran well as he took 88th (19:26.3) while junior Alex Frank had an gutsy final 800 to pass a bunch of guys and finish next behind Small in 89th place (19:30.4).

Sophomore Ryan Smith had a good race as he ran a 20:15.3. We also got to witness outstanding pack running by three sophomores as Jack Gonzalez, Kevin Cunniff, and Eric Rhum worked together throughout the race to push each other and race as one. It was a great example for the entire team to see. Gonzalez ended up pulling away down the final stretch (22:23.3) just ahead of Cunniff (22:28.3) and Rhum (22:30.5).

All of the HP sophomores ran the 3 mile open race, so the team only had freshmen racing in the 2.375 mile frosh-soph race. Jake Margolick led the way despite having an off race and took 48th. The team then had a pack of three with Nolan Espinoza (124th), John-Henry Ohlwein (126th), and Ryan Rosenfeld (137th). They were followed by Zach Voltz in 157th. The freshmen know that they will have to work very hard over the next year to be able to compete with their age group competition. The question as always is how many of them are willing to make the commitment????